


watch the castles burn, these golden ashes turn to dirt

by aunaree



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, M/M, Murder and Dumping Body Thingz, Post-Canon, So Many Grey Areas in Morality, The McCall Pack Falls, What Happens When the Youth Has Had Enough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:35:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29348247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunaree/pseuds/aunaree
Summary: Liam is sitting in the Sheriff’s station with blood in his hands, because if there’s one thing he learned from Theo, it’s how every person carries a devil on their shoulder — even the most righteous ones.You just have to know when to listen, and Liam’s been listening for a long time.
Relationships: Liam Dunbar/Theo Raeken
Comments: 15
Kudos: 64





	watch the castles burn, these golden ashes turn to dirt

“Liam,” the Sheriff sighs. He doesn’t seem to know where to start; the familiar pinched look on his face goes to hiding when he lets his head hang low, palms flat on the metal table.

Liam is seated across from him, and the metal clanks when he rests his cuffed hands on the table—staring. He’s thinking, quite casually, how easy he could yank it off at one shift. But the move makes the Sheriff wince, and says, “Don’t even think about it.”

Liam doesn’t mind.

He’s admiring it, really. The same way he admires the faint yellow glow from the lamp on the ceiling, hovering above them; the gray, dull walls of the four-cornered room; the boring metal door. He catches a camera on one corner of the ceiling, pointed right at him, blinking red. He stares at it. He turns to the Sheriff, mouth upturned. “This is pretty intense, isn’t it?”

The uneasy expression on the Sheriff’s face grows worse.

“What they know right now is I’m telling you how this is gonna go,” the Sheriff says and makes an effort to point at the cameras, and then at the walls where the mics are attached. “The cameras are on but we’re silent right now. I asked Parrish to momentarily work on the mics, but once the lieutenant walks in, it’s turning right back on, so I need you to listen to me—”

“God,” Liam laughs. He slumps down more on his seat and lets his head roll back. “Is it just me or your—” Liam gestures his own face with what little he can manage with the cuffs “—wrinkles just went a hundred times worse, Sheriff?”

And, _god_ , Liam thinks, _Theo’s really rubbing off on me._

The Sheriff rubs a hand across his face, but he makes it so as though it’s just a natural gesture, and not because he’s frustrated from the man across from him. Nobody’s watching them, anyway, at least not yet until the lieutenant walks in, but Liam understands the Sheriff’s attempt to be careful.

He’s not lying though—the Sheriff’s downturned mouth is more patent with the growing lines around the corners, and his eyes are hooded and forlorn, like a frown is the official face he’s wearing everyday.

“The team the San Luis Obispo county sent know _nothing_ about the supernatural, Liam,” the Sheriff grits, growing impatient. “Argent is contacting connections as we speak, so whatever it is that you did…” the Sheriff takes a sharp intake of breath, and this time Liam thinks the man fails to hide his frustration when he rubs another hand across his face harshly. “… _Jesus_ , whatever it is that you did, I don’t think you’ll be able to—but we’ll find a way. We’ll get you out, if they take you in. _When_ they take you in, because there’s no one else to point at but _you,_ Liam. Christ, they’re crazy about the murder weapon.”

“I’m telling the truth,” Liam says.

The Sheriff snaps his head up. “They’re not ready for that conversation, Liam. Otherwise they’d just send you straight to a mental health facility.”

“What do you want me to say, then?” Liam huffs out a laugh. He raises his cuffed hands and wiggles his fingers. “I can just show them.”

“They think it’s a feral dog,” the Sheriff says, and when he laughs it’s our of pure disbelief and none of humor. “Or some kind of canine animal you own. Unidentified. This is why they’re willing to question you here instead of sending you straightaway to San Luis. They don’t want to waste time. Find a way to go along with it.”

Liam doesn’t say anything. He tips his head back and stares at the ceiling.

“Jenna is really worried, Liam—”

“I know,” Liam snaps, flashing his eyes at the Sheriff briefly. The camera won’t detect, he hopes. The Sheriff only clenches his jaw.

Liam knows, and he doesn’t want to be reminded of the look on his mother’s face when she answered the door half an hour ago to an officer flashing his badge. He doesn’t want to be reminded of her cry, _“Oh, Liam,”_ a hand in her mouth when the officer cuffed Liam’s wrists and recited his rights. At least Dr. Geyer was there to hold her in his arms as they take Liam away, cop car speeding into the streets of Beacon Hills, sirens blaring.

It’s kind of funny how his mother have seen him bared-fang and yellowed eyes, and yet the sight of him being shoved inside a cop car is still an unbearable sight. Then he remembers what the officers told his mother; maybe it’s the “murder” in their sentence that brought her gasping.

Liam feels a tug in his chest.

“I promise we don’t do that, Ma,” Liam told his mother when he was seventeen, revealing the truth for the first time. “We don’t kill people. That’s not who we are.”

Liam isn’t seventeen anymore.

“I’m done, Sheriff,” Liam adds, looking at the door. Someone’s coming. “I don’t care anymore.”

The door bursts open, and Lieutenant Ethan Gomez saunters in with a small smile that looks a lot like enthusiasm. It’s a bit hidden behind the scruff around his mouth but Liam manages to see it.

“Ah, I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he says but Liam can tell he isn’t sorry at all, even without his chemosignals. “I had to sign some things. Let’s start, shall we?”

“Please,” the Sheriff says, gesturing the seat across from Liam. He makes sure to flash Liam a meaningful look.

Lieutenant Gomez doesn’t take his eyes off Liam the entire time he tugs on the hem of his three-piece suit and takes the seat; like he’s already scrutinizing Liam out of physical aspects. He only glances down once to open the folders he’s spreading on the table, but he quickly raises his eyes back to Liam as he pulls out a recorder from his coat pocket.

He sets it on the table, flashing Liam another fake benign grin, and clicks.

“My name is Lieutenant Ethan Gomez,” the man begins. “Accompanying me is Sheriff Noah Stilinski of the Beacon County. For the record, today is the 23rd of June at four thirty-seven in the afternoon. This interview is being recorded.”

Liam grins when he feels the room’s temperature go lower. He knows exactly what this is; make the room cold, make the suspect anxious. Gomez’s smile is gone now, but he’s staring at Liam with such a cocky glint in his eyes—like he knows exactly Liam is the murderer, like he wants Liam to know that he _knows_ , but they’ll do this interview anyway. Just for the record.

But Liam is the winner here, really, because behind that glint, Liam senses irritation. Irritated by the cocky look _Liam_ is giving him now: _I know something you don’t_ , Liam sings in his head, _you want to know where those claws came from._

From his peripheral, he sees the Sheriff shift warningly.

“Please state your full name, date of birth, and occupation,” Gomez continues.

“You already know that,” Liam says.

“For the record,” Gomez presses. If Liam looks hard enough, he’d see the twitch in Gomez’s jaw.

Liam sighs and complies. “Archivist in a museum in Sacramento,” he says about his occupation. He sees Gomez’s brows rising at the mention of Sacramento—Liam gets it; if he has a job there, what the fuck is he doing back in Beacon Hills, right?

“Thank you, Mr. Dunbar.” He looks down at the folder. “Let’s start at the beginning. Three days ago, at around seven in the morning, Henry Smith’s body was found in his motel room in Arroyo Grande. Records state that the victim has already been deceased approximately eight hours prior to the discovery of the body. Your fingerprints are found on several areas of the room—the doorknob of the entryway, the doorknob of the bathroom, and the headboard.”

Liam remembers them.

“Can you explain the situation, Mr. Dunbar?” Gomez taunts. “Where were you the night of Henry Smith’s murder, at the 19th of June?”

Liam thinks of going straight to the point, and he looks at the recorder, then at Gomez, who’s clearly expecting him to lie. To flash another cocky grin and deflect.

They want to hear the truth. So Liam will tell the truth.

He starts at the beginning.

*

On the morning of June 19th, Liam is standing outside an antique shop somewhere in the streets of Arroyo Grande and pretending to look at the displayed items.

He seems to be staring at an old-fashioned bike, but it’s the reflection on the glass that he’s watching. It’s the man from the other side of the street coming out of a pizza parlor that he’s watching.

A low growl erupts from his throat.

“Careful, Liam,” Theo says from where he’s dangerously leaning against the glass and munching on churros because Theo’s obsessed with churros. “We’re in a street full of witnesses.”

“Fuck off,” Liam hisses. The churro vendor glares at him from his food truck. Liam approaches the vendor and buys a single piece of churro, albeit the vendor sounding a lot forced when he asked what flavor. “Cinnamon,” Liam answers without taking his eyes off from the other side of the street. He swiftly hands him the bill and takes a quick bite.

“You look so fucking suspicious,” Theo snorts.

“I said shut up,” Liam says as the vendor pushes his truck away. “I know what I’m doing.”

“If you do, why did you bring me here?”

Liam doesn’t answer him. Henry Smith is facing them, but he’s speaking with an old woman outside a flower shop. Still, just to be sure, Liam faces back at the antique shop and pulls out his phone, pretending to be busy. He also tugs his—Theo’s—beanie down to further cover his ears and hair.

Theo tips his cap over his forehead.

Liam takes another bite of churro. “Who looks suspicious now?”

Theo responds with an eyeroll.

Although Liam is only pretending to look at his phone, he takes notice of the several missed calls from Argent. There’s some from Lydia, too, and a message, but he clears them all from his notifications bar. He almost snorts at that; the pack knows exactly that if it isn’t Theo, it’s Lydia with her magical air of motherly instinct—or sisterly, whatever—that can pull Liam out of his depth of stubbornness. But, well, things are different now.

Liam locks his phone and tucks it in his pocket, just as Henry Smith’s reflection on the antique shop’s window begins to leave, a box of pizza and bouquet in hand.

“Bouquet, huh,” Theo says, halfway through his third churro. “Who do you think they’re for?”

“For his poor, unsuspecting wife,” Liam answers. When Henry Smith hops inside an old white Mini Countryman, Liam hurries to the alleyway beside a barber’s shop where they’d parked Theo’s truck and immediately heads for the driver’s seat.

“You know,” Theo says as he’s getting in the passenger seat. “Driving my truck is one thing, but don’t fucking spill your cinnamon crumbs all over the seat.”

Liam ignores him and finishes his churro in one bite. He crumples the wrap and throws it out the window, eyes locked on Henry Smith’s car driving away, and then he speeds out of the alleyway, making a turn to the right.

There’s a red coupe in between them as they slow down to a stoplight, so Liam takes the chance to pull out a brown folder from the glovebox.

Henry Smith is exactly how he’s written on Argent’s file—which Liam stole from his underground office days ago—except his beard is cropped to a goatee now unlike the ducktail he had from the photo attached to the file. On times like this, Henry’s schedule is strictly followed. At ten, he stops at a pizza parlor for breakfast because he’s a detrimental man like that. He’ll buy a bouquet, then by fifteen minutes or so he’d be at the hospital to visit his wife.

“Ah, shit,” Theo laughs, eyeing the file in Liam’s hands. “A sick wife. You sure you still wanna go through with this?”

Liam clenches his jaw and shoves the file back in the glovebox. “If someone’s truly sick between them, it’s him.”

One minute after eleven, Henry pulls to a stop at the community hospital. Liam parks several cars far in the lot by the hospital front, watches Henry step out of his car and disappear into the double doors with the flowers and the pizza.

Liam sighs and thumps his head against the headrest.

“We still have a chance to back out, you know,” Theo mumbles, and when he takes off his cap his hair is flat against his forehead, a little damp from heat.

Liam reaches out a hand to brush it away.

“Stop—stopping me,” Liam says weakly. He rolls his head back to tear his gaze off Theo and stare absently at the hospital doors. “You’re starting to get really annoying.”

“You love me anyway.”

Liam closes his eyes, mouth a little curled up. “Unfortunately.”

Theo snorts, “So what? This is your plan? Just stay here ‘til it’s time for your stupid _date_?”

Liam opens his eyes to glare at that, and then he swallows a painful lump in his throat.

He pulls out his phone and waves it at Theo. “Just want to make sure the plan is going as smoothly as expected.”

Just then, his phone pings. It’s not from Argent or Lydia, but from Henry Smith himself.

_You still up for tonight?_

Liam shakes his head, letting out a disbelief scoff. With the fake name and fake profile picture he’d set up, he quickly types out a reply.

_Of course. Can’t wait to see you._

Henry replies, _Me too, baby boy. I can’t wait to taste you._

Liam wants to puke, but at the same time he’s quite amused at how easy it was to lure Henry Smith in his trap, or at least he’s hoping, if things don’t go to shit. From all the information Argent has garnered about the hunter, this is the most important one—a group chat of random people, old ones or twenty-something, and Henry Smith has a habit of texting. If he’s lucky, he gets to sleep with one of them. That was Liam’s opportunity.

And every time he gets lucky, this is how he does it—stay at the hospital for long excruciating hours, try and wash his hands with the shower of bouquets and detached visits for the wife who’s dying in her bed, pick his daughter up from school at four in the afternoon with fake, gentle hands, take her home and cook her a nice dinner, and by the time she’s asleep, Henry Smith slips through his front door in the middle of the night to go fuck the brains out of someone he’d met online, or join Monroe with her genocidal plans to track down supernaturals.

Scott and Argent would track down attacked packs. Liam and Theo would track down the hunters that attacked them. Sometimes they take Mason and Corey with them.

Henry Smith is one.

“Looks like it’s going smoothly,” Liam drawls, staring at his phone—at the profile picture of Henry Smith, thinking which eye he’d take out first. If he should pull his teeth or cut his tongue. “Fucking hell,” he laughs, almost hysterically, “out there texting somebody stuff like this when he’s probably sitting by his wife’s death bed.” He huffs out a breath, “Fucking piece of…”

“Calm down, Li,” Theo says. His head is tipped against the headrest, too, copying Liam’s move, and his eyes are closed. Liam wants to kiss his throat. “If we’re gonna be here for a while, at least go buy us some lunch.”

Liam doesn’t buy lunch. Instead, he sets out an alarm on his phone. And then he rests his forehead against the steering wheel, elbows propped on them, too. A little tired, a little weary, and he sleeps.

He wakes up an hour before his alarm, with Theo still on the passenger seat playing games on his phone and munching on another batch of churros. His arms are numb and his forehead feels tight from pressing against the steering wheel too long. Instinctively, Liam’s gaze shoots across the parking lot, and sighs when he spots the white Mini Countryman still on the same place.

Theo raises a brow at him. “Aren’t you starving?”

“Fine,” Liam grumbles when he sees a hotdog truck parked near the hospital. He gets out to buy an ordinary sandwich, and when he gets back his eyes immediately land on the hospital doors. More out of habit than purposely—to watch, scrutinize, monitor; to make sure no mistake will slip through his fingers.

At exactly three-thirty, Henry Smith comes out of the hospital doors. Liam has finished his sandwich by then, and Theo has finished his churros.

They follow Henry to a pre-school where the man greets a brunette little girl, her hair pulled up into braided pigtails that makes her head look like an M-shape. Henry crouches down to give his daughter a hug, to which Liam scoffs, and then he carries her Sailor Moon backpack for her.

“So easy,” Theo comments. “As easy as carrying his victims.”

Liam tightens his grip on the steering wheel.

They follow them to a quaint, little one-story house in a neighborhood that’s almost like a spitting image of Beacon Hills. There’s a gravel path leading to the front door, a garage, and a healthy row of bushes by the front lawn. According to the file, Henry waters them every morning.

Henry greets his neighbor as he leads his daughter inside their home. When Liam stretches his hearing, he hears Henry asking his daughter what dinner she’d like tonight. Liam lets out another incredulous laugh. So normal. Like he isn’t planning to cheat on his dying wife for the millionth time tonight. Like he isn’t paying their bills by shedding teenagers’ blood on his hands.

Henry Smith still doesn’t notice, doesn’t look over his shoulder, doesn’t watch his back. He thinks he’s safe here. Liam grins.

By six p.m., Theo’s yawning, and Liam’s stirring awake from another nap that accidentally slipped through. His first instinct is to stretch his hearing, and he relaxes some when he hears Henry working around the kitchen.

Somehow, it makes Liam’s stomach rumble.

“At least buy some dinner,” Theo says.

“I can’t let him slip from my eyesight,” Liam says, rubbing his eyes. “He could’ve been skeptical the entire time, for all we know.”

“Liam,” Theo calls in a warning tone.

Liam doesn’t listen.

Liam keeps himself awake by re-reading the file he’d already read a thousand times, or talking to Theo about history, or absently listening in to Henry’s and his daughter’s conversation as they eat together in the dining table. His daughter blabbers on about art class, a classmate she likes, and then she asks about her mother. The lie roll off Henry’s tongue so easily. It almost makes Liam want to backout. Almost. At one point, Argent calls again, so Liam turns his phone off.

“He’s just worried, Liam,” Theo sighs.

“No.”

By eight-thirty, the nanny arrives by the front door. Henry opens it for her. By nine p.m., Henry’s daughter is asleep. But it isn’t until ten that Henry finally walks out in a white polo shirt and tight jeans, carefully brushing his gelled hair. Liam winces. _Why white,_ he thinks. It’ll only bathe in red.

Henry Smith drives away in his white Mini Countryman, and Liam follows a minute later after his phone pings: _Remember, Room 103. See you, baby boy._

“Baby boy,” Theo cackles. “One more of that and I’ll tear his dick off.”

When they reach the motel building, Henry Smith’s car is one of the three vehicles parked on the lot. Liam considers parking the truck by the diner a kilometer away—CCTVs on the road, then he can walk on blind spots to the motel. But he thinks it doesn’t matter anyway. At least not anymore.

He sits there for a while, staring at the neon sign of the motel. Every few minutes, the T goes out.

Only three witnesses, plus one, for the receptionist. It’s in the middle of nowhere, too. Deserted and alone. He could kill all four of them, too, if he’s careful with his tracks. All the rooms on the first floor are occupied. For a cheap motel like this, the walls are surely thin. His palm would be enough to muffle a scream.

His brain sounds a lot like Theo.

“Well?” Theo asks. “We can still backout.”

“Don’t come with me,” Liam says.

“What?”

“Don’t…” Liam takes a deep breath. “…don’t be there, please.”

For a moment, it’s silent, and then Theo’s voice cuts through again.

“Why?”

Liam swallows hard. “Because I want to stay angry.”

His phone pings again: _Where are you?_ He throws his phone in the backseat, and then he reaches for the glovebox. He pulls out a pair of black cotton gloves, and stares at it.

He puts them back.

“Liam—” Theo protests, but Liam’s already unclipping his seatbelt. “You want to be caught.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Liam—”

Liam’s already out of the truck, walking past the reception area, and storming up the metal stairs by the motel’s exterior. It doesn’t take him long to find Room 103; it’s literally just the third door. The whole time, his gaze continues to darken, and the rise-and-fall of his chest worsens.

Threatening claws prick on his fingers.

He’s at least polite enough to knock.

When Henry Smith swings the door open, Liam’s eyes are glowing, his fangs are bared, and his claws are jutted out by his sides. Henry’s smile fades as quickly as Liam catches it, throat bobbing, pupils going wide, and he mutters, “Shit.”

Liam flashes him a wide, vile grin, and surges forward to grip the collar of Henry’s poor white polo. Henry is quick to wrap his hands around Liam’s wrists, a pathetic attempt to struggle, but Liam is a supernatural monster, as they say. He doesn’t budge. He manages to close the door with a kick of his foot, and then he pulls Henry until the man’s feet is lifted from the ground, and throws him across the room.

Henry lands on his back with a sickening thud and begins to crawl away backwards, letting out a gaspy _please_ , but Liam doesn’t stop advancing. Henry tries to scramble up, reaching for something, and Liam catches a mobile phone lying on the sheets. Liam knocks at Henry’s jaw with his feet, causing the man to collapse back on the ground.

He feels powerful like this. It should be _enough_ like this, to tower over the man and see the fear and sheer panic in his blown eyes. To see his neck and cheeks reddening from the quick thump of his heartbeat, to smell the approaching death. It should be enough. Maybe it’s enough to scare him off; make him crawl back to his family and never cheat and kill again.

But Henry says, still breathing hard with fear, “Killing me won’t ease your survivor’s guilt.”

Liam lets out a loud cackle at that. He fists at Henry’s collar again, and he uses his free hand to swipe at his cheek with his claws. “Ow, fu—!” Henry curses, but Liam lets go of his collar so he can shove a palm in his mouth and push him back to the ground. Henry’s head thumps against the wooden floor, the blood on his cheeks glistening from three long and deep fresh claw marks. The scent sends satisfaction crawling in Liam’s veins.

“This isn’t survivor’s guilt,” Liam spits, unmoved by Henry’s white-knuckled grip on Liam’s wrist from the hand that’s covering Henry’s mouth. “This is vengeance.”

Liam digs a knee on Henry’s thigh; not enough to keep him from struggling, but enough to hold him down. He buries his free claws on Henry’s stomach, watches as Henry tilts his head back in pain, throat bulging with veins, face shiny with sweat, and biting at Liam’s palm that Liam smells a different tinge of blood—his own. He presses his palm against Henry’s mouth harder, doesn’t care if Henry bites out a flesh for all he cares.

Tears roll down Henry’s cheeks, and Liam pulls out his claws from the flesh of Henry’s stomach with a sickening squelch.

“Fuck,” Henry cries, shoulders twitching to try and hunch over in pain, but all he manages is to clutch his stomach, a thick pool of blood staining his polo. He takes a peek at it and lets out an ugly sob. “Please,” Henry looks up at Liam with tears in his eyes, “I have a family.”

Liam growls and claws at Henry’s legs. He thinks it’s deep enough he’d taken out a chunk. Henry screams, and Liam doesn’t bother muffling it. He doesn’t care anymore.

“I have—” Henry gasps, blood starting to dribble from his mouth, “—a daughter.”

“You think that will work on me?” Liam clutches a handful of Henry’s hair and pulls his face closer. “Your family will be better off without you, you fucking psychopath.”

“And this—this doesn’t make you?” Henry chokes, struggling to breathe, mouth filling with blood and saliva as he looks at Liam dead in the eye. “If you’re not … the monster like we think you are … you won’t … you won’t kill me.”

Liam snarls. “We’re way past that. You asked for a monster, you’ll get one.”

“I have a daughter, please…”

Liam roars—a loud, pained echo, chest torn apart all over again, and his cheeks go warm when he feels his own tears start trickling down.

“When he said please, did you stop?” Liam shrills.

He yanks Henry’s head to make him stare at Liam’s eyes. To see the pain and anger and sorrow there.

“When he begged, did you fucking take your knife away?” Yank. “When he wanted to go back to his pack, to his fucking family, did you stop?”

What Liam doesn’t expect is for Henry to start laughing. It starts out as a huff, sounding like a cough, and then he’s sounding a mixture of choking and cackling, looking hysterical, his hacky breath fanning over Liam’s face.

“I was going to,” Henry says, his mouth splitting into a wide grin, teeth bathed in blood red. “But he … he said something.”

Liam’s fists are starting to shake. All of him are starting to shake. He’s one—one thin thread away from murdering. Again. From stripping off his mercy, whatever of it that’s left.

“He told—told me,” Henry coughs, laughing, _crazy_ , “just end it … as long as you spare Liam.”

Liam digs his claws on Henry’s chest.

Henry groans, pained, tipping his head back, but Liam forces Henry to look back at him with his fist still clutching the back of Henry’s head.

Liam digs his claws deeper, curling his fingers inside.

He digs until he feels the pulsing of Henry’s heart, until Henry freezes, open-mouthed, eyes gazing into nothing until it closes. Liam squeezes the pulsing organ until it’s not pulsing anymore.

“Liam,” Theo calls, his ghost standing at the corner of the room. “It’s over.”

Liam lets out a grunt as he pulls his claws away from Henry’s flesh, a thick, viscous string following through, his entire hand wrapped with Henry’s blood.

Liam sits there until he’s numb, suffocated by Henry’s exposed insides and his slowly rotting body. He sits until he forces himself to stand up, to carry Henry by the back of his shoulders, and throw him on the bed.

Liam stares at the pool of blood on the floor. He should have worn gloves, but he could still fix that. He should wash his hands and get the body bag from the truck. He should clean up the room. He should get the shovel and drive away with Henry Smith’s body in the truck bed.

But instead he stares. And stares. Numbly, he enters the bathroom and washes his hands. It takes so long, he wonders why no one’s checking up on them yet. He wonders if somebody called the police.

He leaves everything as it is.

When he gets to the truck, Theo is waiting on the passenger seat, except there’s really no Theo.

Liam settles on the driver’s seat, hands on the steering wheel, and cries.

“Thank you, Liam,” Theo says. Theo says what Liam thinks Theo would say. Sometimes Theo says the voice of Liam’s subconscious.

When Liam turns to look at him, the Theo he sees now has a silver bead of mercury dripping from his nose. His chest is flapped open, hollow and empty, except for the silver coating inside. The Theo he sees now is the Theo he saw months ago, when Liam was too late, and Henry Smith and many other hunters have escaped. The Theo he sees now is the last of him Liam has seen.

He tries so hard to create a figment of Theo that isn’t _that_. He tries to create the Theo who eats a lot of churros ever since he’d tasted it, the Theo who’s snarky and cocky and settles Liam’s anger with reverse psychology, the Theo who reminds him to eat, the Theo who reminds him to answer his phone when someone important is calling, the Theo who’s alive.

But always, it goes back to this. The dead, empty-hearted Theo, drowning in mercury.

“It’s okay, Liam,” Theo says. “You can rest now.”

He tries so hard to feel Theo’s touch, even as a figment, and believes there’s a phantom hand touching his cheek. He closes his eyes and inhales a shaky breath.

When Liam turns back to the passenger seat, Theo’s ghost is gone.

*

After Liam cleans up and changes his blood-drenched shirt, he drives to Henry Smith’s house.

The lights are on. Henry’s daughter is awake at one in the morning, looking for her father.

Liam knocks on the door. He hears a faint pattering of foot, a _daddy!_ , and when the door swings open, the little girl’s smile disappears. Like her father when he opened the door for Liam.

“Who are you?” the little girl asks, long curls draped over her shoulder, a pink pony stuffed toy clutched against her chest.

“I’m, uh,” Liam clears his throat, slowly crouching down. “I’m a friend of your Daddy.”

“Is Daddy with you?”

Liam feels heat behind his eyes, but he blinks it back. He can still smell the blood on his skin.

“Your Daddy is … he won’t be back for a while.”

The girl frowns. “Why?”

“He’s, uh…”

“Is he going with Mommy, too?” she asks.

Liam gapes, taken aback.

“Daddy said Mommy’s going somewhere really far, but it’s a happy place because in there she will get anything that she wants. It’s only for big people though.”

“Tatiana?” another voice calls from the house.

Tatiana turns around, saying, “Daddy’s friend is here!”

Liam takes that as a chance to run away before the nanny comes and sees him. Tatiana doesn’t see him hiding behind the neighbor’s fence. He overhears, _“What did I tell you about opening doors for strangers?”_ and sees the nanny pushing Tatiana inside, despite the girl’s high-pitched _but!_ , and the nanny lingers in the door for a while, looking around, smelling worried.

Liam goes back to the truck—Theo’s truck—and slams his palm against the window of the driver’s seat, hunching over, and vomits.

He pukes out whatever his stomach couldn’t muster. The hotdog sandwich. Henry’s blood. Henry’s daughter. His sins. Theo’s death—and Scott’s, and Mason’s, and Corey’s, and Stiles’, and Malia’s. The blood of all the hunters who murdered them.

When he’s done, he gets inside the truck, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

He drives back to Beacon Hills.

*

Many, many months before the 19th of June, the McCall pack has fallen.

Days before Christmas Eve, Liam and Theo went back home to their apartment in Sacramento after another hunter encounter. Liam collapsed on the bed, muttering, “I’m so fucking tired.” Theo pulled his shoes off.

“Well, it’s never going to stop unless we choose to,” Theo said, collapsing beside him.

“Except we can’t stop,” Liam muttered, tucking his head under Theo’s chin.

“Maybe we should just run away,” Theo laughed.

Maybe they should have.

The hunters did the same thing they did before—they gunned a house down.

It’s the Stilinski household this time. They were gathered around for the pack Christmas Eve, and seven of them were running late—the Sheriff was dropping off donations in an orphanage with Parrish, Argent and Melissa went out to buy softdrinks and other beverages, Derek had just landed from his New York flight, Lydia took longer at home when her distant relatives video-called, and Liam was fixing his last-minute potluck because of failed ingredients.

They survived.

And the rest who came early, well.

Everything changed after that.

It didn’t end at the Stilinski household. Argent was the first to arrive—bullet holes on windows, trashed furniture, door flung open, empty house, drips of blood left behind. The air smelled of wolfsbane and mercury. Several neighbors had called the police.

Monroe sent pictures and videos; she got braver when she’d managed to recruit a drudge hacker. A specific hunter was assigned for every pack member they’d caught—to give them their own personal torture.

When they reached the old farmhouse where they’d been kept, no hunters were around. There were bodies—the pack—but no one was breathing.

Argent went for a group of hunters.

Liam went for the specific—every single one who’d been at the farmhouse, every assigned hunter to torture. He started with Scott’s, and he ended with Theo’s; Henry Smith.

When Liam hunts hunters with Theo or Mason and Corey before, they don’t kill. They never kill.

Now, well. Everything changed.

He learned how to use gloves or talcum powder, how to clean off blood from linoleum floors using oxygen bleach, how to squeeze in a head of a form too tall for the body bag, how to carry a 200-pound human to the back of Theo’s truck, how to dig on the ground with a shovel, how to dump a body in the lake.

At Scott’s funeral, his grave was right by Stiles’. Partners-in-crime, even until six feet underground. A man from France with curly hair and grey scarf came by; he stood not too close to what’s left of the pack, but close enough to stay idle in the background. Liam knew him as Scott’s first beta. A couple from London stood shoulder-to-shoulder, eyes fixed on Scott’s casket as it lowered down on the ground. Kira arrived, patting Liam’s shoulder and ruffling his hair. Lydia did the same. Other allied packs from neighboring counties came by to honor the True Alpha and his best friend. Derek didn’t show himself, but Liam could sense him from somewhere in the trees.

After, Melissa McCall left Beacon Hills and fled to her mother’s hometown. The Sheriff stayed.

Mason’s funeral was different. He had extended relatives who didn’t know about the supernatural; the information sent to them was only to the extent of deeming it as a random shooting. Liam didn’t stand beside Mason’s parents—they weren’t hunters, but they hated Liam’s kind. Started hating it. Liam stood at the back. The only time he’d been given the chance to approach Mason’s grave was when everyone else slowly deserted, Mason’s parents last.

Malia’s and Corey’s and Theo’s funeral was quiet. They were buried in a tranquil afternoon, near the heart of the preserve. Only the pack was there. Peter didn’t cry, but he was staring a lot.

Liam stayed by Theo’s grave until sunrise.

Loss after loss after loss.

Liam is sitting in the Sheriff’s station with blood in his hands, because if there’s one thing he learned from Theo, it’s how every person carries a devil on their shoulder—even the most righteous ones.

You just have to know when to listen, and Liam’s been listening for a long time.

*

“He killed him, Sheriff,” Liam says now, staring right at the Sheriff, repeating, “they killed _them_.” Because Liam knows he understands, he feels, he breaks, more than anyone else. _Stiles is dead, Sheriff._ The Sheriff’s face crumples, but even with glistening eyes he manages to hold them back.

Lieutenant Gomez squints his eyes, tilting his head to where the Sheriff stands. He doesn’t look at him, but Liam can see the gears working in his head.

“Mr. Dunbar,” Gomez says, looking back at Liam. “Are you confessing to the murder of Henry Smith on the night of June 19th?”

In the corner of the room, Liam sees Theo standing. Dead, empty-hearted, drowning in mercury.

Liam answers.

*

For some fucking miracle that Argent managed to pull off, instead of being locked up behind the bars of San Luis Obispo county, Liam gets sent to Eichen House.

“Neighboring packs now deem you as a threat, nearly as much as the hunters are,” Argent says, arms crossed and tone sharp. “Which you _are_ , which you have _become_. I told you a hundred of times to let me handle them. Let me handle it. You let grief and anger get the best of you, and this is exactly why hunters like Monroe thinks your kind is—”

“Oh, fuck you, Argent,” Liam spits sharply. His wolfsbane-laced handcuffs clank against the posts of his bed when he jolts forward. “You were _exactly_ like them before, so don’t you pull that card on me. Everything Monroe knows, it came from _your_ father. I don’t give a fuck anymore. I don’t give a _fuck_ ,” Liam’s voice cracks, “I’m done.”

“Good,” Argent snaps. His jaw twitches. “Because you’re compromising the safety of the rest of the supernatural by carelessly running around like a scourge and shoving your claws at the first human flesh you see.”

“I only ran after the hunters who killed them, Argent.”

“Some of them has a _wife_ —!” Argent’s tone is rising now, the veins in his neck cording. “Or a family. And you _killed_ them. Just because you didn’t want a witness.”

Liam’s mouth quirks up in a merciless sneer. “You had a wife, too. Before Melissa. Why did she die again?”

Argent snarls. “ Your Theo was a murderer, and yet here we are.”

Liam’s roar vibrates through the walls. When he tugs against his handcuffs, the wolfsbane burns his skin. It keeps him in place, but the handcuff left a dent on the bed post.

“We all have blood in our hands,” Argent says, and now he’s standing at the side of Liam’s bed, gripping Liam’s chin tight with his fingers. Liam bares his fangs. “But we don’t do by-products, Dunbar.”

Liam laughs through a mouthful of fangs. “Until when are you willing to stretch this moral compass? We don’t kill, until we do. We don’t kill the witnesses, until we do.”

Argent lets go of him, his gaze heated and stern.

He asks, “Why weren’t you careful with Henry Smith?”

Liam stares at a random spot on the wall. “He’s the last. I’m done.”

Before Argent leaves, he says over his shoulder, “Henry Smith’s wife passed in her sleep. The child is appointed to a guardian.”

A nurse comes in after that to take off Liam’s handcuffs—they’re necessary for visitors.

Liam can’t look at his parents in the eye when it’s them who visits. He never once looked at his mother every time she’d sit by Liam’s bed and ease him into eating. His mother will reach out a hand, rub a spot in his handcuffed wrist, but Liam will yank it away.

His parents always arrive in silence, and they leave the same.

Liam supposes he’s been too busy thirsting for bloodshed that he never really got the chance to let it sink in. He lets it now, every night, locked up in a cell with his echoing sobs, but it’s nothing compared to the prison in his mind.

Sometimes, his mind can’t help it—Theo will appear in the corner of the room, eating his churros. Sometimes, he’s stroking Liam’s hair. But most of the time, he’s dead and empty-hearted and drowning in mercury. Liam begs at nothing to get it off his mind.

His salvation comes, weeks later, in the middle of the night when he’s staring wide-eyed at the ceiling, and hears a scream.

A familiar high-pitched scream, and then a siren starts blaring all over the entire Eichen House. Red warning lights flood the hallway.

His door clicks, and Lydia comes barging in with a disheveled appearance, her chest heaving. Behind her, in the blinking red hallway, lie two unconscious bodies of nurses.

“I’m done, Lydia,” Liam breathes.

“I’m not.”

“I want to rest,” Liam crumples. “Like them. Like _him._ I want to go with him.”

Lydia surges forward and takes Liam’s face between her hands, roughly pressing her forehead against his.

“Listen to me,” Lydia hisses and holds his face up sternly, her eyes boring into his. “If we let it go just like that, if we stop, all the more that they won’t. There will be more Scott and Stiles being put underground. There will be more Theo.”

Liam shakes his head. “I’m done.”

Lydia holds Liam’s face into place firmly. “Many Monroe are still out there,” she whispers. “Many Henry Smith.”

Liam squeezes his eyes shut, because Theo is standing behind Lydia, dead and empty-hearted and drowning in mercury.

“Liam, listen to me,” Lydia’s voice cracks now, but she swallows, gasping. “I can’t—it’s different now. I can’t forgive, Liam. It’s so hard to forgive.”

Heavy footsteps start pounding down the hallway.

Lydia shakes him. “ _Liam_. Are you with me or not?” she cries. “I’m asking you one last time. We’ll get out of here, and go after them. Every single one of them. Or you stay here, rot, and never give them the justice they deserve.”

When Liam blinks his eyes open, Theo is gone. Lydia’s eyes are wild and desperate. This is not the Lydia he knows. But he’s not the Liam he knows either.

None of them are ever the same.

The footsteps go nearer, louder—more nurses, more Eichen security.

Liam rises from the bed and feels his shift starting to take over. Lydia grins, euphoric and wild.

Liam roars, and when he flashes his eyes, they’re not bright yellow or bleeding red.

They’re a striking blue.


End file.
